When the designated “Simon” says “Simon says” before a command, then the people have to do it.  If he or she simply says the command and the people follow, then they lose the game.  The person who can follow the rules best wins the game.

Victoria plays this game in her elementary school and first learned it from her Kindergarten school teacher.  She says that they played the game every week and the teacher was always “Simon.”  She says that it is a fun game and that the meaning of the game is to win the game.

Since Victoria is only a 10-year-old, her interpretation of this game was simply to win.  The motives of elementary school students show that they do not see any more to a game than a winner and a loser.  She learned this game from a very young age, demonstrating that the spread of folk games start from a very young age in American culture.  Even from grade school, all the teachers teach it to their students in order for them to settle down and concentrate on one thing.  This game could have been created to increase the students’ ability to follow directions.  In order to teach discipline, games such as these and the “silent game” are taught from young. The silent game is not actually a game but a way to convince students to be quiet.  These virtues are taught to children and converted into a game so that the children will obey.  By making following directions fun, grade school teachers can trap their students to listening to them.

The “Simon says” game designates a person to be “Simon,” which is the person in charge of the group.  By having an authority for the rest of the group to listen to, this game creates a hierarchy with the students on the bottom and the teacher at the top.  Learning this game is both educational and fun for the children, especially because it revolves around such a simple idea.